No leads in Delta teen murder

No leads in Delta teen murder

Laura Szendrei: Teen died after beating in North Delta's Mackie Park.Online
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School windows are covered with paper to stop the media from seeing inside Burnsview Secondary School in North Delta September 27, 2010 during a meeting concerning the weekend beating death of 15 year-old student Laura Szendrei in a nearby park.Ric Ernst
/ PNG

With police tight-lipped about the investigation of 15-year-old Laura Szendrei’s brutal murder, a fearful North Delta community continues to speculate over who could have committed such a heinous crime.

The two lead theories are equally troubling. Some fear rampant conflict between older and younger students in the area turned deadly. Others suspect a serial attacker is stalking women in the area — and is still on the loose.

Delta Mayor Lois Jackson said she knows the public is desperate for information on the case, but “police are very close to the chest on this one — there’s so much at stake.”

Some young students and graduates of Laura’s school, Burnsview Secondary, have told The Province they fear Laura’s attack was a retaliation connected to a recent macing incident involving older students.

One graduate of Burnsview said “gangs” of students from North Delta Secondary have “brutalized” younger students in the past few years, crashing parties, intimidating them and leaving them in fear of reporting incidents.

“It seems not a lot is being done because they are not being caught,” said the young man, who did not want his name published.

Jackson said in her roles as police board chair and mayor, she’s taking the young students’ fearful reports of intimidations and beatings at the hands of older students “very seriously,” but she wants to be sure the incidents are not stories generated through the grapevine of social media.

“It’s troubling to hear that this could be going on,” she said. “[But] we have to hear from people that were involved and deal with it clinically.”

As to whether she was aware of a pre-existing problem between students at North Delta Secondary and Burnsview, Jackson didn’t answer directly.

“Is it something that [was] a bit underground?” she said.

Administrators at Burnsview Secondary and the Delta school district refused to give interviews for this story, asking for questions to be directed to Delta police.

In an emotional meeting with fearful and angry community members on Monday night Delta police Chief Jim Cessford said “obviously, there may be a connection,” between the attack on Szendrei — an apparently sudden beating in a wooded area of Mackie Park in broad-daylight on Saturday — and three previous attacks on women which occurred within several blocks.

The “person of interest” Delta police have yet to locate in Szendrei’s killing is described as a Caucasian male, 16 to 25 years old, seen leaving the park wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and cargo-style shorts to the knees.

On June 7, a woman was jogging in a bog area on Santa Monica Drive, not far from Mackie Park and was struck on the head from behind, police said. The suspect in the June attack was described as a male five feet, seven inches tall, wearing a blue hoodie and black shorts.

In a press release, Delta police said the incident is similar to a May 24 attack in the 9200-block 112th Street in which a female was walking on a path when someone approached from behind and struck her on the head. There was no suspect description.

A third attack happened on July 21, when a woman walking with a friend in the 7800-block 112th street was approached from behind by a man who suddenly grabbed her buttocks. The attacker is described as a Caucasian male about five feet, eight inches, wearing a light-coloured short-sleeve shirt and black shorts.

A spokesperson for the Delta police said no new information on the investigation would be released on Tuesday.

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